South of the Hellmouth
by Nogard
Summary: Buffy/SON crossover. Two years before Spencer arrives in L.A., Ashley becomes a Slayer. Unfortunately for her, her new Watcher is none other than Andrew.
1. Slayer

Gather around, gentle readers and I will share with you a story most extraordinary, a story of a mere girl of fourteen who finds herself in the possession of an ancient and mysterious gift, a gift only given to girls for some totally bizarre and _unfair_ reason… But I digress.

This girl was special. Child of a noted musician, she had been raised in a magnificent palace adorned with the finest… adornments. Like those curtains, you think those are normal curtains? Nuh-uh! …But once more, I digress.

Ashley Davies, for that was our heroine's name, had everything. She had friends, family, a really cute boyfriend, and the full wealth of her mother's credit cards at her disposal. But, alas, her cherished life was about to crumble, for this sweet and… not-so-innocent girl was about to become… Slayer of the Vampyrs.

Her blessing! Her curse! Everything she knew would be sent tumbling upside-down, and side-ways, and in-between-ways. Relationships would crumble. Lives would be lost.

Gentle readers, I plea to you, if you are of the faint of heart, turn back now! For below this text lies a horrid tale of hatred, deceit, and of two lovers who find themselves thrust into a terrible war. Gentle readers, even I, your humble and devoted narrator, fear for their survival in this harsh, cold, vampyre-infested land we call L.A., California.

Our story begins on an ordinary summer's day. Dear Ashley was sitting on her couch reading fashion magazines like any other young girl… What? You said I could narrate. You said… Fine.

----

Hey there, world! This is Ashley. I thought I'd save you from Andrew's dorky monologue before you left this page from sheer boredom.

To clear things up, my father isn't some boring violin player wearing a dusty old wig. By 'noted musician', Andrew means Raife Davies. I know, I know, 'Wow, you're so lucky!' Meh.

Here's how it is, my dad's away all the time keeping up his career as a famous rock star. I'm lucky to see him maybe _twice_ a year. While at home, mom ignores me most of the time because she's always trying to pick up some guy… Yeah, my parents are separated.

Not quite the fantasy life you imagined, is it?

Anyway, my life was basically normal, discounting the 'magnificent palace' of a house I grew up in, up until a few years ago when the previously mentioned dork decided to pay me a visit… Actually, no. It started a few months before that.

I had ditched class that day, and I was just hanging at the mall like a normal L.A. mallrat. I think I was looking for a new outfit to tease Marty with… Marty was my boyfriend. We'd been going out for a while.

So, I was in the dressing room, trying on the clothes… when _it_ happened. What's 'it'? It was a… powerful sensation. It's like my whole body was filled with this fantastic red glow…

It started in my chest, like a pressure against my heart. It… it wasn't _painful_ exactly… but it seemed like it should have been, if that makes any sense. From my chest, it spread throughout my body, tingling, and… and… God, I don't know how to describe it.

Even my first time with a girl would never compare. This was deeper, more intimate, somehow. It felt like I was connected to something, like I was a part of something greater, something innately feminine… Oh, get over it, Andrew.

Anyway, I was so overcome by this… sensation that I could barely stand. Legs wobbling, I fell down on the floor, bruising my knees. Standing was impossible with red lightning crackling over every nerve. And then… the energy… it's like it went _inside_ me.

It sank… into my muscles, and into my bloodstream. It was gone, but it wasn't. It was there now, filling me with strength. I stood up, a strange confidence in me, and changed back into my clothes. I never did end up buying the outfit.

Still, my life stayed pretty much the same. I mean, sure I had this strange convulsion thing on the same day terrorists nuked Sunnydale, which freaked me out a good deal, I'll tell you, but I never told anyone about it and just tried to forget what happened. Who knows, I may have forgotten about it eventually, but fate intervened as it has a habit of doing.

As Andrew said, it was summer vacation and I was pretty much hanging around and doing nothing. The doorbell rang, and I went to answer it, expecting Marty. Instead, I saw this blond guy, might have been in his late teens, wearing _tweed_ of all things and holding a pipe. "Hi, can I help you?" I asked, utterly bewildered by his appearance.

"Actually, _I_ can help _you_," the guy exclaimed in a really fake British accent. "You are Ashley Davies, correct?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "Listen, whatever you're trying to sell, I'm not interested, okay?" I shut the door in his face before he could answer.

"No, wait!" he called muffled through the door, his fake accent lost. "This is about your destiny! The power you gained on the day Sunnydale collapsed!"

A bit startled, I pulled open the door a crack to regard the desperate-looking guy. "What do you know about it?" I asked, an eyebrow raised.

"I know that you experienced a joy once limited to a single girl per generation," he said with a note of awe in his voice, returning to the fake accent. "On that fateful day, you became a part of something… stronger. You, Ashley Davies, are now among the Chosen. You have been reborn… a Slayer of Vampyrs!"

I slammed the door shut, called the cops, and got him arrested.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that not only was he telling the truth, he was actually sane, if psychotically annoying. It did get me thinking, though. What if the glow wasn't a product of some nuclear-based poisoning? What if it was a gift, a miracle of some sort?

I decided to test out the range of my strength that night. After my mom went to bed, I walked into my room, shut the door, and approached my dresser. It was decently sized; I wouldn't think of trying to move it without emptying the drawers first.

I thought about the glow inside me. I felt like I could lift a whole skyscraper, let alone the dresser. Well, I thought, time to put it to the test.

I wrapped my hands around the edge of the dresser. Taking in a breath, I lifted with all my might. The dresser flew up with the force of a rocket. In my surprise, I dropped it, causing it to fall with a loud _plunk_.

Thunder boomed outside. There was no rain on the windows, though. Just the boring dry thunder of a Californian summer.

I shivered despite myself. This glow, it really gave me super strength. I began to wonder if there might actually be something to this 'Slayer of Vampires' thing.

I opened my laptop and Googled it, instantly getting thousands of hits. Most of it was clearly fiction, books or online role play. I tried again, using a new search term: _"slayer of vampires" –fiction_

This time, I got a collection of vampire sites referring to them as legendary creatures. I checked out the first link and scanned for the section I wanted. It looked like an interview with someone who claimed to be a vampire hunter, something that the interviewer seriously doubted.

_PS: So, is there any truth to the claim that there is a magical slayer, of vampires cower before?_

_VH: (sighs) How many times must we tell you people? The slayer does not exist. She is but a myth created by the vampires themselves to explain their deaths. 'Surely the humans could never hope to defeat us,' they say, 'Sire was killed by a mystical warrior, not a measly hunter.' Honestly, now…_

_PS: We're running out of time, I'm afraid. One last question, Mr. Hartmann. Have you ever undergone psychiatric treatment?_

After rereading the passage, I realized that 'slayer, of vampires cower before' was a typo. The transcriber probably meant 'slayer, of whom vampires cower before' instead. I hit the back button.

Well, one typo and a nutjob discouraged me a bit. I started to reconsider whether this search was worth my time.

I thought back to the kid who talked about it. He had seemed like a role player from one of these sites. His outfit, his fake accent, even the way he talked was like someone else. And who the hell calls vampires vahm-pie-ers?

I paused, considering. The kid really did seem like he was exaggerating a lot, but he did get the Sunnydale thing right. I decided to make another search, this time getting rid of the quotes around 'slayer of vampires' and adding 'sunnydale'.

Well, here we go, I thought. I hit search. This time, the sites I got seemed on the 'nutjob' order.

I clicked on the first link, called 'Demons, Demons, Demons'. This site seemed to be a database of all demons in recorded history. The weird part was that it was treating them as fact.

I looked at the vampire article, and quickly found the section I was looking for:

…_while the werewolf has not been kind to them, their greatest enemy arrives in the unexpected form of a teenaged girl, the Vampire Slayer. Often referred to as 'the Chosen One', the Slayer has existed for untold centuries, slaying vampires nightly and defending humanity from their evil. While the Slayer is mortal, she is blessed with extraordinary strength and after her death, another girl elsewhere in the world is transformed into the next Slayer._

_UPDATE: Because of an unknown magical occurrence many have linked to the destruction of Sunnydale, the Slayer laws have been irreparably altered. Now any and all girls capable of playing host to the Slayer magic have ascended to a powerful state. Vampires of the world, beware!_

----

Ah, what wonders our dear Ashley discovers. The wide world was soon to be at her fingertips, for her destiny was revealed to her on this night. But, poor Ashley. Danger abounded, and I, her faithful Watcher(-in-training) was nowhere to be found.

Indeed, it wounds my heart to think of the horrific events young Ashley will face in our tale to come. However, this is _my _laptop and your faithful, but busy, narrator must return to writing his Harry/Draco fanfiction. Good day, dear readers, and fare well.


	2. Vampire

Mmm, minty… Ah, hello there, gentle readers. You caught me enjoying my evening tea. We Watchers so love this simple pastime.

Ahem. You, of course, are here, not to talk about this delightful English beverage, but to continue the fascinating tale of Ashley Davies, Slayer… of the Vampyrs.

When we last left our heroine, she had discovered her ancient birthright via the information super highway, that modern instrument commonly known as the 'Internet.' This was something that I, your humble narrator, tried my hardest to convey in accordance with the laws of the Watcher's Council. Would she have listened then, doubtlessly she could have avoided much of the struggle that lay ahead.

For, my dear readers, the vampyrs were out there regardless of the Slayer. And without her faithful Watcher(-in-training), a Slayer is nothing more than a frightened and helpless girl, struggling against a cold and…

What? I am telling the truth. No, I'm not… Fine.

Bloody Americans…

----

Hey, there. It's me again. Yeah, Andrew's still a dork. And for the record, he's _not_ British.

Yeah, okay, so anyway, I confirmed that Andrew was in fact telling the truth about me being a Vampire Slayer. Well, I had good evidence in any case. Besides the demon website, being able to toss my dresser around the room _was_ pretty convincing.

So, the next day, I went to the police station to bail him out. They told me that would be impossible, however, as he was actually a criminal wanted for attempting to rob a bank… in Sunnydale, as it turned out. Visiting hours were over, so I had to leave empty handed.

Now, I wasn't sure what the story was behind the bank robbing thing. On the one hand, he seemed like he wanted to help, but on the other hand I really knew nothing about him. Though, I reminded myself, he was from _Sunnydale_, and that's where this whole mess seemed to start.

A bit more computer research told me that despite being a small town, prior to the detonation, Sunnydale was actually competing with Chicago for the title of Murder Capital of America. Seriously, it was amazing it had lasted as long as it had with the kind of crime rates it had built up over the past hundred years.

It occurred to me that maybe Sunnydale was a vampire cesspool, and Andrew's crime was entirely justified. By extension, perhaps the terrorists were trying to eliminate a good chunk of the vampire population in an extremely violent manner. Maybe he was even one of them. After all, both he and the demon website had confirmed a link between the Vampire Slayer thing and Sunnydale's destruction.

However, at that point, I could only speculate. Unable to do anything about Andrew, I just went about my life as normal. Well, things were _almost_ normal.

One night at _Gray_ – that's this club I liked – I was sitting and waiting for Marty to come back with drinks, when I found myself drawn to this guy. It wasn't even that he was hot. He was just your average guy lounging in the corner, watching girls with the typical oh-so-superior _guy_ smirk.

Normally I wouldn't have given him even a second disgusted glance. But as we'd established earlier, tonight was not normal. Not in the least, really…

So, he saw that I was staring and decided to come and chat. Lucky me. If I was paying enough attention, I would have noticed how short it took him to walk across the floor. I glanced away one moment, and the next…

"Hey there, cutie."

The guy now stood beside me and leaned up against my table with a smug grin. I gave him a glare to show him I wasn't interested, muttering a "Hey." Not like that would be enough to stop him, of course.

"You here alone?" he asked, making it clear he intended to fix that problem.

"_No_," I emphasized.

He stared oddly at me, and there was _something_ about him…

"Can I help you?"

And Marty was back, drinks in hand. He looked at the newcomer with the suspicion he deserved.

"Yeah, get me one of those, will ya?" he waved a hand at the drinks, as though Marty was a waiter or something.

"He was just leaving," I stressed. "He thought I was single, but he was _wrong_." I turned to him to demand that he leave me the hell alone, and hesitated. There was this strange sort of _pull_ about him, like an uneven pool table making all the balls roll to one place… if that makes any sense…

"You and me both know that's not the full story…"

It took me a moment to realize he had said something. "What?"

"What?" Marty asked. His eyes narrowed in anger. "Get the hell away from my girlfriend, you creep."

I knew I should be grateful for him backing me up like that, but I couldn't take my eyes off this stranger. There was just _something about him_… His eyes were like black holes, impossible to escape from.

"Hey," he whispered to me, his voice powerful, seeming to echo throughout my thoughts. "What's your name?"

"Ashley Davies," I muttered before I knew what happened.

He grinned with excitement, a devilish sort of excitement. About this time, I was feeling really weird, like when the dentist puts you on nitrous oxide and you feel like you're sinking inside of yourself or whatever. "Hey, Ashley, I need to talk with you in private," he told me, and it was like I knew it was true. "If your boyfriend doesn't mind…"

"He doesn't," I mumbled. I walked away from Marty, following the stranger outside. But every second that I wasn't staring into the stranger's eyes, my head got a little more clear.

Eventually, I realized just what a bad move it was to follow him into the back alley. By then, it was too late to turn around. I figured I better just listen to what the guy had to say, and then hurry back and apologize to my boyfriend. "So, what's up?" I asked.

The guy just shook his head and grinned. "Ashley Davies, huh? I never killed a moviestar's daughter before…"

Follow some weird guy into a dark alley? Yeah, I knew this was a bad idea. I _did_ just learn I was stronger than Jill Mills, though, so I wasn't _totally_ an idiot, was I?

"You can scream if you like," he said casually, as though commenting on the décor. He stalked toward me. "It won't do you any good, but it might make things interesting."

I reacted on instinct. Balling up my hand into a fist, I slammed it into his face. He fell, sliding across the ground several feet away. "He's a _rockstar_, jackass!"

He looked up at me fiercely, his eyes transformed with a golden sheen. "_Slayer_," he growled. Then his face… shifted. It was like extra bones suddenly grew on his skull, and his teeth jutted out into sharp, deadly fangs.

I suppose I should have been expecting this, or at least prepared for the possibility that it might happen; however, I could only stand there in shock. Vampires… were real. All of this… it was all real… including the very real _vampire_ that was right in front of me.

"I _knew_ there was something about you!" He swung up on his feet with an unnatural grace, like a tiger or a panther, and stalked toward me. "They say Slayer blood tastes the best…"

I held up my fists and slowly backed away, trying to figure out what to do. What killed a vampire? I wished I'd studied that website a little more thoroughly! I tried to run through what usually worked in the movies. Sunlight? About nine hours away. Silver bullet? I didn't even have a gun! Wooden stake? I looked around…

Yes! There was a dirty wooden box lying against the wall with some kind of Chinese food logo stamped on the side. It would have to do.

Eying the vampire, I made a dive for the box. Lifting it up, I felt the red lightning fill me, and then I snapped off an end, making a sharp edge. The vampire lunged. I had just enough time to twist the wood piece into place, shoving into the creep's chest… and he exploded into a pillar of dust.

God, I'll tell you, that stuff gets _everywhere_. It was all over my clothes, my hair, my face… Yuck.

But, hey, I just killed a vampire!

Going back inside _Gray_,I ducked into the bathroom to clean myself up as best as I could, and then went looking for Marty… who wasn't there. Turned out he'd left without waiting for me. I can't exactly say I blame him, either.

I went back home and tried to call him, but he wasn't interested in talking. I wasn't quite sure what to say, though. 'I was hypnotized by a vampire'?

The next day, he still wasn't answering my calls. Sometime after noon, though, someone rang the doorbell. Thinking it could be Marty, I enthusiastically opened the door only to see none other than my tweed-wearing visitor, this time carrying a bunch of old, worn books.

"Okay, please give me a chance!" he cried, not even bothering to pretend to be British. "I've collected a lot of literature, a- and I'd really like it if you could at least look at a- a chapter or two. I-I-It could help answer your questions… or if you don't want to read, I could try reading it to you, but I'm not sure much I could do because these books are all really in depth and there's a lot of words, many of them old, and I'm prone to pharyngitis. Now, I know that sounds lame, but my genes aren't that good. See, my mom was actually…"

"Andrew," I interrupted, recalling his name from the police station. "That's your name, right? Andrew?" I wondered how he had gotten out when even the opportunity of Davies bail money hadn't persuaded the cops.

"Um, yes. Andrew Wells, eternal servant of the Watcher's Council and devoted follower of Buffy Summers, greatest of all Slayers…" He looked like he would just keep rambling on forever.

"Andrew!" I held up a hand. "It's okay. I get it. I'm a Slayer, right?"

"You are indeed, my dear child!" And the fake British accent was back, accompanied by awe. "Ashley Davies…" he paused dramatically for several seconds; I waited. "You have been blessed with the strength and ability to take on the vampyrs, the daemons, and the forces of darkness. You are a Slayer!"

"Cool." I shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll… slay vampires if I happen to run into them. I mean, this is L.A., how many vampires or 'daemons' could there be?"

"Hundreds upon hundreds," he responded with a grin. I wondered if he wasn't exaggerating. He lowered his voice for dramatic effect, "But you will not have to face it alone. For I have come to escort you to an undisclosed location in Europe, where your training in the combat arts shall begin."

This sounded oddly familiar. "Like Hogwarts?"

Andrew disagreed. "More like the Hall of Justice." At my blank look: "The headquarters of the Justice League of America! God, don't you people read graphic novels?"

"You mean comics? Not really," I denied. I never really got into stuff like that… not that this had to do with anything. He does that, you know? "I'm not going, in any case. This is my home, as screwed up as it can sometimes be. I have a life here. I have a guy." Though, that last part was a bit of an overstatement at this point.

He looked up at that. "Is he cute?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Cute? He's adorable!"

Andrew sighed. "Then maybe I can do something… Can I use your phone?"

"…Sure," I agreed. "Come in." I led him into the hall with a phone he could use. I then thought of something that I was curious about. "So, Andrew, were you one of the terrorists who nuked Sunnydale?"

"Don't be silly, my dear child," Andrew scoffed. "Sunnydale wasn't _nuked_. No, no, a most noble vampyr blessed with a soul used a mystical amulet acquired from an evil law firm to incinerate an army of primordial vampyrs and collapse the portal to hell, while me and the Scooby Gang escaped in a school bus."

"Oh, yeah," I muttered. "I'm sorry, I was being _silly_."

"Think nothing of it, child," he said, missing my sarcasm entirely. He set his books down on a nearby chair, and began dialing.

I walked into the next room to give him some privacy, but I'm definitely sure I heard him say, "The password is 'flying monkey demon.'" Oookay…

While he made his call, I made a call of my own with my cell, one last chance to talk to Marty. This time he actually answered… only to promptly break up with me when I couldn't think up a legitimate excuse. "Great…" I sighed. "Scratch the cute boyfriend."

It sounded like Andrew was done with his call, so I stepped back to find him grinning like a little kid told he can help himself to all the ice cream he can eat.

"Hey, Ashley," he called, "Great news! Dawn said that I'm not needed back in Italy. From this point on, I shall be your own, personal Watcher!"

Lucky me.

----

Ah, wasn't that a delightful chapter in our saga? Our dear Ashley may have lost her boyfriend, but she has gained something far more valuable: a Watcher(-in-training). Word is, she's not that into guys, anyway.

Well, I would very much like to continue our foray into the wondrous world of Ashley Davies, Slayer of Vampyrs; however, our time must, regrettably, be cut short once more. You see, a lonely Slytherin has just discovered that his soul mate may be closer than he ever dreamed possible.

Good day, dear readers, and fare well.


End file.
